Kelley: Teen Annie swore she'd never work at the Enquirer

On April 21, 1999, I walked out of the offices of the Battle Creek Enquirer and thought, “I never want to work there.”

It was part of a ninth-grade job-shadowing program. I filled out a form of career interests and with my fellow students, I was placed at a local business to see what the future entailed.

I can’t remember what my choices were. Animals and writing, maybe? I might have had fingers crossed for Binder Park Zoo. The roulette wheel landed me at the Battle Creek Enquirer.

I do remember what I wore: a pleated skirt and tie, because that seemed really professional to ninth-grade Annie. I remember a full room, big computers and a man designing a WOW cover.

I can pin down the date because I also remember a reporter needing quotes about the shootings at Columbine, and we just happened to show up at her door.

I’m so embarrassed by my uninspired response, I won’t repeat it here. Go ahead and look up an old edition of the newspaper.

The feeling that the people at the Enquirer had no idea what to do with us is part of what left me with a bad impression.

I had come with the expectation of revelation. We were in ninth grade — the next big step seemed far away. However, the adults said it was time to start pondering the adulthood that must have seemed as fast as an oncoming train to them.

But there was no big revelation for me at the Enquirer that day. It was a glorified tour, as we were passed along. I felt awkward, the adults seemed awkward, nothing happened.

That sour impression only seemed to be confirmed by later meeting a reporter who seemed uninterested in her job.

Never the Enquirer, I told myself again.

So, how I ended up at the Enquirer is a story for another time.

But I’m here now. And as an adult, I’ve sworn to myself to never be that bad experience for any other young people.

It’s had mixed results. Sometimes someone else makes a commitment and it gets passed to me at the last minute.

Or sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. That happens too.

When my boss asked for volunteers to lead sophomores around for Future Track, I knew this was a chance to somehow make it up to ninth-grade me.

Plus, I needed column material.

The plan was to find other Future Track venues in walking distance and have the teens conduct interviews.

The students got some hands-on experience in journalism, but they also saw other work spaces and learned about other jobs.

By the end, I’m pretty sure most of them wanted to work at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

For first-timers, it was impressive the details they picked up, like the smell of fresh paint at Architecture Plus Design; or knowing not to ask “Does this program work,” but to frame the question in terms of concrete results.

I thought the four hours were going to stretch out forever, but they passed quickly.

The best part was lunch — not just for the obvious reason that there was pizza, but we had a great conversation about downtown Battle Creek. There was talk of BuzzFeed and fan fiction and how there should be more teen-friendly events.

We had to compile interview notes at the last minute, so I didn’t have a chance to ask the students how they felt about the Enquirer experience. Maybe that’s for the best. They were all well-behaved and pretty chill, but I was exhausted afterward.

Still, looking at that newspaper from 1999, I recognize some names: Trace Christenson, John Sherwood and Stephanie Boyd. They were at the Enquirer that time I visited and they’ve gone from otherworldly adults to my co-workers.

There is a 10th grader out there right now who I could end up working with in the future.

I wish I could tell that teenager the Battle Creek Enquirer hasn’t been a bad place to land. Heck, I may not have been able to job-shadow at the zoo, but now I've been out there plenty of times to write about it.

But some things, no matter how much one wants to instruct or reassure, kids have to figure out for themselves over time.